It’s common for people to feel a little anxious about starting a claim for personal injury compensation for many reasons. The common ones when it comes to slips, trips, and falls in a supermarket that people often raise are:

• Is it right to claim for a “stereotypical” fall in a supermarket? I don’t want to be seen as part of the “claims culture!”
• What if I lose – will I get stung with huge lawyer’s fees?
• If I win how much of my compensation will I see if my lawyer takes a huge part of it?
• Is it even worth the hassle?
• Will I win against a giant corporation? The little guy never wins in these battles!

Well luckily for you, our unique way of working here at The Injury Lawyers mean that we can address and resolve all of the above common concerns. Here’s how:
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The Work at Height Regulations 2005 made special provisions for working on ladders.

Are ladders banned?

The regulations do not ban ladders but attempt to make the use of them safer.

How are ladders safer than before?

Ladders can only be used at height where your employer has risk assessed it and found that they are low risk and that they will be used in a short amount of time (between 15-30 minutes) or there is a fixing on site which cannot be altered.

The ladders must rest on a surface which must be able to support the ladder. No surface which is likely to move or is unstable is acceptable. The rungs should be horizontal and remain horizontal when in use. Ladders should be placed so that they are stable when being used. Suspended ladders should be secured so the position cannot move and it doesn’t swing.
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As part of a compensation claim we can attempt to recover for any loss of earnings caused by the accident or injuries. This means that if you sustained injury in an accident and as a result you were not able to work and you lost earnings, we can attempt to recover this loss. This would be in addition to any general damages (compensation for your injury). A loss of earnings claim would have to be proved.

To prove a loss of earnings claim we will normally request copies of wage slips and possibly bank statements. We would have to show that a loss actually occurred in order to recover a loss of earnings. We can only recover the actual loss though –  for example if you were off work for 4 weeks and you were paid in full for 2 weeks and then paid half pay for the subsequent two weeks – you lost half of your pay for 2 weeks. If you have a set wage or salary then it is fairly straightforward to calculate your actual loss. If your wage fluctuates up and down each week or month then we would have to calculate your average weekly or monthly wage. We would calculate this using your pre-accident wage slips. These can then be compared to your post-accident wage slips to identify the difference (i.e. the lost earnings).
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I’m not kidding when I tell you that it’s genuinely quite scary that we take on such a huge volume of claims for personal injury compensation caused by people falling and tripping on defective or missing manhole covers. Personally I don’t walk over them in the street. I’m not superstitious – I’ve just seen the extent of the damage that can be caused.

If you are injured because of a missing or defective manhole cover, you may be entitled to make a claim for personal injury compensation. But what about if the manhole cover is on your own property? Can you still make a claim? It all comes down to the circumstances, notice to those responsible, and the duty that is in place to make sure the area is safe.

Rented Property

Starting with a rented property, it’s normally the case that the duty to ensure that the cover is safe will fall with your landlord. They normally have the overriding duty to make sure that the premises is, from a structural perspective, safe to use. So if you injured yourself due to a defective or missing manhole cover on a rented property, you will normally pursue your landlord.
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Even if you have been lucky enough to never have been involved in an accident, you might still get calls and texts from companies claiming that they have now valued your claim and they can tell you exactly how much your claim is worth. But it’s generally worse after you have had an accident because somehow your information gets passed around.

It’s a lucrative business and there are claims management firms and lawyers out there who will not leave you alone until you use their services. They will call, and call, and call, and call, and call, and call etc. Our advice about this is simple – don’t panic, and just ignore them, and block their numbers.

How they get your information

It can be from anywhere. You may have used an online calculator to see how much your claim is worth. All it takes is a name and a phone number and you’re on their system. Perhaps you called a company to ask for some advice and they traced your number and they have passed your details around as well.
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I’m going to split this one in to two parts – the first is if you are an employee who has been injured by a roll cage when working in a supermarket, and the second is if you are a customer injured by a roll cage in a supermarket.
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The last thing we all want to happen when we go shopping is to end up leaving the shopping centre on a stretcher because you’ve had an unfortunate slip. However, in big shopping centre’s it is inevitable that there are several food outlets which sell fast food and all it takes is for one child to unfortunately drop their “meal” on the floor and for you to walk there afterwards for the worse to happen. That, or general liquid spillages.

If this scenario seems all too familiar, you may be entitled to claim for your injuries which also entitle you to recover any consequential losses such as loss of earnings, travel expenses and care and assistance from friends and family.

To improve your chances of the claim being successful and the case being resolved as quickly as possible, there are certain things that you can do and these are:
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I know of many people, including myself, that have invested in hair extensions as some point or another because they are simply not happy with the way their hair looks. Be that because it is too thin, too short, too curly or too straight, hair extensions can give you the look that you wish you had been born with – or alternatively they can also give you the type of hair you love in the magazines. However, although in the majority of cases the result can look fantastic, many people can end up suffering because of bad hair extensions.

There are two main ways that hair extensions can be fitted:

Bonded – this is where the “fake” hair is bonded onto the “real” hair with a sort of clasp (usually black).
Glue – this is where the “fake” hair is literally glued onto the “real” hair.

Both of these procedures can put immense strain on the natural hair bond as the root has to hold an amount of hair that it is not used too. Therefore hair loss can be quite a common occurrence but hair loss can also be a result of negligent fitting. Anyone who is putting hair extensions in should be properly trained to do so as there are certain things that can mean hair loss is extreme and also aggravation of the scalp.
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Building sites can be dangerous places, so it is not surprising that accidents are quite common. However, just because you work on a building site does not automatically mean that you should get injured or deserve to get injured; after all none of us get up to go to work to end up in hospital or at our GP later in the day.

Common accidents that occur on building sites can involve the heavy machinery that is being used (such as diggers, cranes and other such mechanical instruments), a lack of personal protective equipment for employees, and the acts of fellow employees causing you harm.

One of the most difficult things with these claims can be ascertaining who is responsible as it is quite common on building sites that several different contractors working (builders, joiners, plumbers, and electricians) and companies are responsible for different things.
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To put it simply a claim would normally be made under the Athens Convention if you sustained injury through an accident which was not your fault, whilst onboard a ship at sea. In some instances a claim may be brought under a different law or regulation such as via The Package Travel Regulations 1992. It is essential that you seek legal advice as soon as possible so that your Solicitor can advise you as to your best course of action.

The Athens Convention declares a carrier liable for damage or loss suffered by a passenger – if the accident which caused the damage occurred in the course of the carriage and was due to the fault or negligence of the carrier. A carrier can limit his or her liability unless the carrier acted with intent to cause such damage or acted recklessly and with knowledge that such damage would probably result.
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